I love reading books. Writing reviews on Goodreads makes me feel accomplished and helps me remember what I’ve read. Before Goodreads, I often forgot which books I owned and ended up buying them or even reading them again.

Most of my ratings are 4s and 5s. Some are 3s. Almost no ratings are 2s and 1s. One would expect a more normal distribution of ratings but I have a filtering system, and then a rating system, and they work well.

Filtering

• I would not buy or start a book if it’s under 3.7 unless I knew the writer, 4+ would be preferred
• I would not complete a book if it’s bad
• I would not write a review if I didn’t complete it

This leaves most of the 1s and 2s books out.

Rating

• For a book to be 5, it has to be a truly enjoyable piece. It can be educational, profound, fun, page-turner, interesting – one or two of these would be enough for a 5 by me. I tend to give 5s to most books thanks to the previous 3 rules. My Goodreads profile is full of 5s.
• 4s are good books with serious flaws, often parts of a series or by writers who like to read. Here’s one that’s far too long for the events and could use editing but is otherwise okay, and is by a great writer:

• 3s are books that looked like 4s but weren’t. Given that I normally drop bad books, it can’t be that bad because I completed it. Here’s a recent 3, for the very poor taste it leaves. Another blogger explains what’s wrong with it.

• For a book to get a 1 or a 2, it has to trick me that it’s better and punch me with a terrible ending that makes no sense. Here’s a flagged one for propaganda:

If you have a ranking system, I would appreciate a link to the blog post where it’s described or a comment here. Thanks!